Elementaltisim Incident 1: The World Turned Upside-Down (Part Two)

When I woke up I was on the floor in the world’s most uncomfortable position. My head hurt, plus my neck was bent backward close to my feet. Also my torso was bent sideways. I tried to sit up but immediately regretted it. Pain coursed through my head and stomach. I slowly adjusted myself into a position of just lying down. Straight.

I slowly rolled on my side, and looked around. I was still in the same place that I come out of the portal in. Wait. My mind filtered out the pain from the information that I needed. Where was Cedar? Looking around, he certainly wasn’t anywhere nearby. This dimension was large. The Dragons Dimension is very big because most dragons are at least as big as a regular school cafeteria. You do not want to make one mad, trust me.

As the pain in my head died down, I was able to sit up. I shakily got to my feet. My legs felt like Jell-O. It would have to do.

I walked around. Then I saw something. There was a leaf! And another leaf! Cedar dropped leaves! I followed the trail. It lead to a small hut. The hut was made out of sticks. I went inside. Cedar was there, crushing some weird leaves. I noticed he had taken off his Dark Crystal and left it beside him on the table. And on the ground… was me?

I wondered how I could be there… and yet also here. Then I looked at myself for the first time. Oh. No wonder I was on the floor and also here. I was my shadow. I supposed since Cedar didn’t have me as a conscience to tell him ‘give it up, dude’ this time he wasn’t going to give up. Well, I was about to have strange leaves shoved down my throat if I didn’t do something. I swooped down and connected myself to me, (yeah, that sounded weird) and became myself again. I woke up, and quickly sat up.

“Woah!” Cedar was surprised.

“Hi!” I said, as if it was totally normal for almost dead people to suddenly be fine.

“How… how’d you do that?”

“You forgot my shadow. It comes off sometimes, and I got stuck in it.”

“Ah. So, you’re fine now? Because I thought you were dead.”

“Yes. Now let’s get going.”

“Exactly where are we going?”

“To save a baby dragon. It can’t fly yet, it’s stuck in a tree, so the mother can’t come for it, and there’s no way for it to get down without killing itself. If I kill the tree it’ll fall, and die, and the mother will be very mad at me and kill me.”

“So you’re in a bit of a predicament here.”

“Yup. Which is why I need you.”

“Why?”

“I’ll explain when we get there. Come on. Oh, and you might wanna grab your thing,” I gestured to the Dark Crystal, “you’ll need it again later, and those things do not come cheap. I will not get you another if you lose that.”

We hurried out of the hut and into the woods. Soon we reached the tree with the baby dragon in it. The poor thing was scared to death, and it wasn’t quite sure why its mother wasn’t coming to get it. It just kept calling out.

“It’s cute!” Cedar clarified.

“Yeah. Now, we gotta help it! So, I have 2 options for you that could both work to get it down. You could either take out the branches above it, or make closely woven branches almost as a staircase spiraling around the tree.”

“I’m not a big fan of killing nature, or even clearing it away, so let’s go with the second option.” Cedar held his hands up to the dragon. A thick branch with a dragon treat on it sprung out of the tree. The hungry dragon hopped down to the branch and ate the treat. Cedar had cleverly placed the branch, the dragon could hop down to it, but being unable to fly it couldn’t hop back up to the branch it was originally on.

Soon another branch appeared, this one with no treat on it. The dragon looked at it skeptically. But a third branch sprouted, and this one did have a treat. The dragon happily walked down and ate the treat. Faster and faster, the branches appeared, with each one the treats would be more spread out so the dragon would go down more branches each time.

Meanwhile, the mother was getting angry. She wasn’t sure what we were going to do with her baby, and she didn’t like what we were doing now. I’m certain to her it looked like we were baiting her baby down so we could do something bad to it. We most definitely weren’t, but how would the mother know that?

A moment later the dragon was safely on the ground. Cedar scooped it up and ran. I followed, knowing what he was doing. He was bringing the baby to open space where the mother could come for it.

About 5 minutes later, we reached an open plain. The mother roared and crashed down in front of us. “What’s she doing? She could just get it now.”

“She’s confused,” I explained. “She wants to kill us but she couldn’t without harming the baby dragon.” I took the dragon and walked towards the mother. She roared in my face in reply. “Here,” I said. “He’s yours.” I placed the baby on the ground and walked back. The mother sniffed the baby, and lowered her head. The baby climbed onto her back.

Then the mother walked over to us. I was positive we were going to die. But she only lowered her head. “What?” Cedar didn’t know what to do. “Does she want to take us for a ride?”

“No, she’s thanking us,” I said. “She doubted us, and she wants us to forgive her. Don’t worry about it. It’s OK.” at the end I was speaking to the dragon.

The dragon roared in response, then flew away.

“OK, now what?” Cedar asked.

“I don’t know. I guess we can go back to my house.” I replied.

We headed back through the woods, following my trail of dead grass I left. Soon we were deep in the woods. We knew what to follow and where it lead, but if only we had know that someone was following us.

Cedar and I walked in silence, having nothing to talk about. I thought heard something pass by us, and multiple times I saw a shadow or something slip behind a tree. But I didn't think much of it.

Suddenly, there was a THUMP ahead of us! A person dropped down from a tree, and looked up to face us. She looked… interesting. Her feet were dragon’s feet, and they stayed that way until about her knees. Also she had wings. Large, scaly, dragon wings. They matched the exact color of the sky-gray, but with tinges of the blue sky blocked by the clouds in there. She looked like this.

“And talking to you. Is there a law here that prevents us from doing that?” Cedar challenged.

“No, but a dragon has to have bowed to you for me to not kill you right now.” the girl said.

I looked at Cedar. I cocked my head, as if to say, Should we attack? That mother dragon did bow to us. Cedar decided for me. “Well, I dragon has bowed to us. A mother dragon, in fact.” This was a good thing to say, because mother dragons are hard to win over. They kind of go into a state where they don’t let anyone go anywhere near them, and kill anyone who tries.

The girl’s eyes widened ever so slightly, but she quickly covered it up. “Well, in that case, you can at least defend yourselves. Because even though a dragon has bowed to you, I still can kill you. But you are allowed to try and not get killed now. Say your prayers.” She charged, almost… turning invisible as she ran. “AAAARAAHHHHHH!” Her feet and wings flashed red, and she completely turned into a Fire Dragon!

I threw up a Death Shield, and Cedar SHRANK! Like, to micro size! I had no idea he could do that. But I angled my Death Shield, and the girl bounced right off it, over now-tiny Cedar, and she almost smashed into a tree. Cedar grew back to normal. But she quickly turned into a Tree Dragon and morphed into the tree, and came out a second later as a poison dragon shooting blobs of poison at both of us. Suddenly I saw a weakness in her fighting. She used the air to her advantage, so she didn’t bother even guarding her feet. I planned to use that to my advantage.

The girl put a Poison Barrier in front of her, and charged at us. I knew what she was trying to do. She planned to ram us, and the Poison Barrier would turn us into nothing but piles of sticky, poisonous goo.

Cedar simply sidestepped her, and I ducked under her barrier and grabbed her feet, infusing her body with Death Mist. That’s a type of shadow, except it’s the shadow’s spirit. It goes into a person and like, eats them and turns them into a zombie all from the inside out. I’m able to use it because I bottled and drank some of it. That’s the only way to harness its magic.

The girl turned back into a girl, and I could see the Death Mist flowing through her veins, turning her skin transparent.

“What is that stuff!” Cedar came over to her, incredulous at her now purple-ish skin and her whole body thrashing about on the ground.

“It’s Death Mist,” I said. “I’ve infused it in her.”

“Won’t that kill her?”

“She tried to kill us. It’s only fair.”

“Yeah, but, it just doesn’t seem right.”

“Fine.” I waited until the girl was unconscious. Then I placed 2 fingers on each of her temples and drew the Death Mist out. It floated above her, and I quickly pulled out a bottle, and waved it at the Death Mist. It went into the bottle and I hurriedly drank it before it came back out again.

“WHAT DID YOU JUST DO?!?!?!?” Cedar stared at me, a wild expression on his face.

“I drank Death Mist.” I’ve done it a million times before.

“Aren’t YOU gonna die now?”

“No, if a Death drinks it the Death will be fine.”

“Oh good. Now, what are we doing with her?” Cedar said, gesturing to the girl on the ground.